CHANGING HOW HOSPITALITY DOES SOCIAL
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THREADS, TEXT-BASED POSTS AND THE EVOLUTION OF X

The one thing that is constant in the social media marketing world is that it is always changing–and at a rapid pace. In recent months we’ve seen the  launch of new platform Threads, a shift in  TikTok’s product update allowing for text-only content, and a rebrand of Twitter to X. These three emerging trends are intertwined and can be seen as new threats to X. Analysts believe the rebrand to X (and doing away with all words associated with the brand, such as “Tweet”) wiped out billions in global brand awareness value. Did it also leave X vulnerable?

TREND #1 | THE SURPRISING RISE OF TEXT-BASED POSTS

Threads and TikTok text might be a reflection of a consumer shift that is bigger than a single platform. Yes, they mimic the simplest of X posts. But another reason we’re seeing more of these simple posts is that people are consuming content at an accelerated pace. And brands can’t keep up. Businesses need to create more fresh content rapidly. Text-based posts are an answer. And the new Threads and TikTok shift are moving to fill that void too.

TREND #2 | VIDEO CONTENT THAT SECURES ENGAGEMENT

Even with the rise of text-based messages, video formats continue to rule. We’re well beyond YouTube, with Reels on IG, the incredible number of TikTok views, and the adoption of video across all platforms. Today, we live in a world where video consumption dominates the attention of consumers. The result has been the ongoing evolution of the types of videos and their formats.

The biggest change in the last few years has been the advent of short videos. Due to brief attention spans, the ideal video duration now falls within the range of 21 to 35 seconds–and getting shorter. By tailoring your videos to fit within this timeframe, you can boost completion rates, ensuring better absorption of your message and increased engagement.

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TREND #3 | ALL IN ON AI

AI is becoming integral to the functionality and growth of social media platforms. AI integrations are enabling platforms to deliver more personalized, engaging, and secure experiences to users, while also supporting their business models through more effective advertising and data-driven insights. Below are some ways that social platforms are leveraging AI to shift their products and user experience.

Meta | Content Recommendation and Personalization: Meta uses AI algorithms to analyze user behavior, preferences, and interactions with content.

Snapchat | Ad Targeting: Snapchat’s advertising platform uses AI algorithms to deliver ads to users who are most likely to engage with them based on their behavior and interests.

LinkedIn | Job Recommendations: AI algorithms on LinkedIn recommend job listings to users based on their skills, experience, and job preferences.

Universally, platforms are leveraging AI to enhance the business, creator, and consumer experiences. Smart Feed and Content Recommendations personalize feeds, helping users researching luxury properties find the next layer of content on their journey. Also important for hotels, messaging, and chatbots suggest responses to messages and connection requests, which save users time and make communication more efficient. With much of the luxury travel global, Language Translation helps users communicate with people who speak different languages. And that’s just the beginning. Expect to see more features introduced at a quick pace. But also expect the expertise of humans to step into all of the AI-generated products to keep the content and conversations authentic.

TREND #4 | SOCIAL HASHTAGS AS A SEARCH ENGINE

Move over, Google. In 2024, we anticipate a persistent trend where social media platforms solidify their position as the primary and preferred search engines. Instead of keywords, Hashtags drive discovery by categorizing and organizing content, making it easier for users to find posts related to specific topics or interests. Or trends. Because the #hashtag is also an indicator of velocity that is important to those who want to see what’s hot.

When users click on or search for a hashtag, they’re presented with a feed of posts that include the trending content associated with that hashtag. This allows them to explore and engage with content that aligns with their interests, even if they don’t follow the account that posted it.  Additionally, popular hashtags can increase the visibility of a post, as they may appear in trending or explore sections, reaching a wider audience and driving more discovery.

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EXCITING TIMES FOR EXPLORERS 

The constant evolution of social media trends and products, and improved intelligence, has elevated the luxury social media experience. Consumers are served ever-more accurate information. They are guided through the journey, picking up details at every stop. Creating content in the current formats and connecting it to the consumption habits of your audience will let their discovery process lead to your property. Try a text-based post. Then tell the story in a video.  And don’t be afraid to ‘hashtag hi-jack’ a trend that is relevant to your property or location!

Get in on LinkedIn Top-Performing Content, Trends and Insights

Do you want to climb to the top of the social media mountain? Professionally speaking, LinkedIn is the platform for you to share thought leadership and build professional contacts. The platform rewards people who publish original and innovative content. In fact, they have an algorithm that boosts the top performers on the platform by distributing it to more people based on your organic reach and how often you publish. Also, it is important to remember that LinkedIn favors genuine human connection. It isn’t the place to share a cut-and-paste message. It might only be a digital relationship, but it is still a genuine relationship–and when you attend that next trade show you will most likely meet some of your LinkedIn contacts! Finally, users return consistently to the platform for big life moments like jobs, promotions, and career updates. Share a like or congrats with them.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

LinkedIn content types are evolving to boost engagement opportunities and build connections. 

  • In-Feed Posts – These posts live within the user’s “posts” tab, and constitute the majority of LinkedIn content

  • Shares – Users can “share,” or repost, public posts to their own feed, with the option to add their own text (commonly with their take on the content, reflecting on what it means to them); Shares can help brands easily push-out content such as UGC, employee testimonials, or industry news

  • Polls – Polls allow users and brands to ask questions in the form of in-feed posts; This tool can help brands gather user insights and understand their unique LinkedIn audiences better

  • LinkedIn Events – Users and brands can create “event” posts that provide event information, such as the date and a link to registration, that appear as posts in the feed and also live in a designated “event” tab beneath their profile; Brands can use this feature to update their LinkedIn audience on upcoming events and recruitment initiatives

LinkedIn Content Best Practices

  • Post Length – Both longer, blog-style posts and shorter (2-3 sentence) posts perform well on LinkedIn – the key is selecting the length based on the post objective
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  • Subject Matter – Blog posts that are formatted as “how-tos” and “top ten” lists perform very well on LinkedIn as they communicate immediate value to the reader. Brands can also share content that is informative for their unique audience
    > Brief (3-4 sentences) company updates that are transparent and friendly build a community of trust and familiarity
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  • Cadence – An average of 1-3 posts per week is ideal to keep audiences engaged and updated

  • The Tone of Voice – LinkedIn is the platform for exchanging ideas and information; Even if a post is purely educational, keep it conversational and invite the audience’s direct input, thoughts, and personal experiences, when appropriate

  • Hashtags – Limit hashtag usage to 3 per post; Save them until the end of post copy, or sprinkle them throughout copy by adding a “#” before pertinent keywords to boost reach

BCV POV

People on LI (no matter if they are there for a job, a contact, or advice)  seek brands and employers that have an active, positive company culture and leadership teams with a winning company mission. BCV recommends testing different content formats to determine your unique audience’s favorite type of content. The best way to determine content effectiveness is by measuring engagement and impressions over time and comparing different post types against each other. The type of post, tone of voice, post length, and cadence  – and how they interact with trends – all combine to create a unique brand experience on LinkedIn. As with all social platforms, LinkedIn trends and insights shift rapidly, so a consistent audit of best-performing content is recommended to make sure your brand is optimizing LinkedIn.

In our recent article sharing insights about crafting the right social mix for your hotel, we covered the approach of basing your hotel’s platform strategy on the Big Three – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s wise to utilize these three networks to form the backbone of a social media strategy in order to tap into their ability to target a large volume of users and drive reach across massive global audiences.

Yet, the opportunity to integrate supplemental platforms such as Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn is often overlooked by travel marketers. These platforms offer the opportunity to drive deeper targeted messaging among niche audiences and the ability to tap into specific user behaviors. When combined with the ample reach opportunities of the Big Three, a carefully crafted multi-platform social mix can work hard to provide a return on investment by delivering omnichannel messaging throughout a consumer’s journey.

In this article we provide a more detailed look into these secondary platforms, including their key audiences, consumer usage, business capabilities, and available tools to leverage in order to expand your existing social strategy. As a topline visual guide to our strategic approach, BCV has created a Social Landscape Infographic designed specifically for travel marketers.

Pinterest: The Visual Inspiration Platform for Planning

Pinterest behaves differently than other social platforms; rather than being a channel for communication or quick-content sharing, Pinterest’s primary purpose is to aid and inspire Pinners to plan. Users come to the platform to curate Boards filled with ideas and imagery that they use to inform purchase consideration. Pinners typically seek content several months ahead of actual purchase or usage – creating ample opportunities for brands to spot trends as they are forming.

Pinterest’s niche audience sets and visual planning nature create a perfect fit for travel content. Travel is an especially popular category on Pinterest, as users search for destination inspiration, shop for lodging and restaurants, and curate their own boards for upcoming trips. These “future-tripping” Pinners pay close attention to travel influencers who are also active on the platform; many content creators come to the site to brainstorm as well, sharing ideas and concepts within their feeds. Since travel content is typically sought out several months in advance, Pinterest’s trending keywords can help to inform travel marketers of trends that will take shape in coming seasons, which can be used to inform content planning across other platforms and increase discoverability. By using these keywords to shape content strategy, you not only improve your Pinterest presence but leap ahead on other platforms too.

Travel brands can position themselves as inspiration go-tos for Pinterest’s visual discovery engine, and take advantage of Pinterest’s unique linking capabilities. Because the majority of users scroll Pinterest for purchase inspiration, an insight to how the platform is used by consumers, brands have a huge advantage on this platform over others because of its direct correlation with social commerce and shoppable posts.

Unique Selling Points

As an inspiration platform, Pinterest is primed for conversion, with many Pinners making purchases within the app or clicking links to complete purchases via websites. This creates an opportunity to attract travel audiences that are primed and ready to make purchases; travel marketers can intersect target audiences during the inspiration and planning stages, driving them deeper into the consideration funnel.

Brand Tools

Pinterest continues to debut notable tools for brands to leverage, the most valuable being its paid social commerce capabilities. These features allow brands to engage users right where they are seeking inspiration. Some of the current options include:

  • Shopping Ads. Single image ads that appear natively as a sponsored pin.

  • Personalized Collection Ads. A series of multiple photos that presents a range of different images to the user as a native ad.

  • Linked Pins. Brands can directly connect shoppers to their product page when they link their pin to their product.

Best Practices

Pinterest is a powerful tool to build awareness and drive traffic. Brands ready to integrate the platform can follow these tips:

  • Repurpose content. Content created for other marketing efforts can be utilized to build a presence on the platform. Often, content that is up to brand standard for Instagram is also well suited for Pinterest.

  • Post high production value content. Brands on Pinterest must have on-brand profiles that showcase their unique brand personality. Pinners don’t expect content to look “in the moment” or spontaneous. Content should be polished and pretty.

  • Build brand recognition. Ensure that the brand’s profile image/bio, choice of board topics/titles, and Pin content is relevant to current marketing messaging.

  • Optimize with keywords. Utilize trending keywords across the social landscape to inform and optimize your Pin and Board titles and descriptions, to increase searchability and discoverability.

  • Be visually alluring. Every post must have visual appeal. If it doesn’t catch a Pinner’s eye, it will be easy to overlook. Images should not only be high-quality, they should also be interesting and creative.

  • Link to product page. Many Pinners are shopping, so always link all Pins to either the brand website or a specific package or room booking page to drive action.

YouTube: The World’s Video Search Engine

As the world’s second-largest search engine, YouTube is as much about discovery as it is about video consumption. Brands that place their video content within the platform have a greater chance of discoverability based on the immersive, never-ending loop of content that consumers digest daily. By appearing in relevant search results here, travel marketers can boost their chances of engaging new audiences and potentially earning direct bookings.

During the pandemic YouTube usage skyrocketed, with a wide range of audiences (from Boomers to Gen-Z) turning to the platform for multiple reasons, including immersive experiences, escapism, and education. Many users who were dreaming of future travel possibilities took to the platform to consume travel content, creating a giant area of opportunity for travel brands to highlight their property and generate awareness for future purchase consideration.

Unique Selling Points

As the second-largest search engine in the world, YouTube is a unique way to filter the world through keyword-specific videos. By making your brand discoverable through video, YouTube offers a way for travel brands to showcase their destinations and expertise to provide value in an entirely new way. YouTube is also incredibly bingeable, as the algorithm works to consistently feed new video suggestions on a nonstop roll of content, therefore keeping viewers engaged and on the platform for longer.

Brand Tools

YouTube is a powerful platform for brand discoverability and consideration, providing brands opportunities to promote both with paid advertising. These options include:

  • Pre-roll. These ads show just before a video.

  • Mid-roll. These ads appear during longer form videos.

  • In-video. These small ads pop up during videos with relevant ads.

Best Practices

YouTube may feel like a high-investment platform, but there are many avenues to ramp up brand presence that require little production. Here are a few best practices to help shape your strategy:

  • Repurpose existing content. Consider creative ways to use pre-existing video on YouTube, including marketing and website content.

  • Showcase the destination. Publish content about your destination, using your local expertise to highlight places and experiences near the hotel to provide audiences with a well-rounded experience and drive further action.

  • Use popular keywords. To increase searchability and discoverability, use trending keywords across the social space to inform and optimize your video titles, descriptions, and playlist names.

  • Promote your property. Immersive, full-view looks at on-property offerings through social video content can help to attract potential guests and create awareness and consideration of your property. Travelers that are seeking to understand the entire experience before they come onsite – including the setting of a guestroom, pool area, or event venue – often use video content to inform their final booking decisions.

  • Show off your team. Consider creating content that involves brief interviews with people working within your property or brand. This can offer a taste of “behind the scenes,” a popular content genre, and may create a deeper connection with a brand by seeing real faces and passion.

  • Engage creators. YouTube has a diverse global content creator community, offering opportunities for travel influencer marketing. Partnering with an established content creator can hold incredible strategic value for brands on this platform.

LinkedIn: Building Brand Presence and Authority

As it’s audience base continues to climb, LinkedIn has become a valuable resource that expands upon networking and job searching. Users now turn to the platform for industry updates, learning opportunities, and news. This provides opportunities for brands to intersect key audiences and achieve deeper marketing goals, including connecting with qualified candidates, sharing thought leadership pieces, and to engage with their professional community to establish and build credibility in the industry.

Travel brands can especially benefit from the unique audience on LinkedIn by joining conversations surrounding relevant topics, such as the future of business travel or in-person meetings. Additionally, this is a key platform to build awareness and brand trust among key business decision makers and event planners, driving lead generation opportunities.

Unique Selling Points

LinkedIn is unique in that it’s a social networking platform wrapped around the broader business world. With the recent rollout of new creator tools, it champions thought leadership and professional development through multimedia content, live streaming, and enhanced user profiles. LinkedIn focuses less on visual aesthetics and more on practical, informational, and inspirational content that furthers careers.

Brand Tools

LinkedIn has a robust paid advertising platform that puts your brand in front of targeted audiences. Given the B2B focus, Linkedin isn’t as affordable as other platforms; there’s a premium for accessing these higher-value audiences. Options include:

  • Sponsored content. Single image, video, carousel, and event ads with direct placement in the LinkedIn Feed.

  • Sponsored messaging. Conversation and message ads that connect with an audience in a personal way through the LinkedIn messaging inbox.

  • Text and dynamic ads. Text, Spotlight, and Follower ads to drive consumers to your website through text, images, and video.

Best Practices

When integrating LinkedIn to your social media marketing strategy, consider the following best practices:

  • Prioritize quality. For brands new to the platform, remember that it is important to take things slow and prioritize quality over quantity. Professional audiences can sense low-quality content and will quickly tune out. This extends to your profile: be certain that the bio language is up to brand standards.

  • Post natively. Posting natively is the best way to reach LinkedIn users. However, for brands new to the platform, resharing other posts is also a good way to get started.

  • Tap into what is trending. Utilize hashtags, keywords, and applicable trends to your brand. This boosts impressions as well as improves brand recognition.

  • Go long. Studies show that long-form content performs better, as many users visit the platform to better understand the insights of their industry. This gives brands the opportunity to become leaders in their sector, offering industry leadership and authority

  • Use images. LinkedIn posts with images gain 2x more engagement on average.

Crafting your supplemental mix

Diversifying your platform mix beyond Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter through the addition of supplemental platforms – specifically LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest – creates a more impactful social media presence. This multi-channel presence creates additional points of engagement along a guest’s purchase journey, targets specific audiences that are more apt to take purchase actions, and increases traffic to the hotel’s home page – ultimately placing more attention on your brand.

As social media usage continues to steadily grow and platforms continue to develop specific audiences and behaviors, we recommend extending resources to develop a presence on these platforms according to individual goals. These platforms are nearly always additive and used in conjunction with existing efforts on the Big Three platforms. BCV’s social media experts can help you define your strategy and choose the right supplemental platforms for your brand goals.

Ready to explore a more targeted social strategy? Contact a specialist and let’s craft a strategic platform plan that can produce greater ROI across your social marketing mix.

Check out our guide to navigating the top social media platforms used by hospitality. We’re here to help you explore the best ways to put high-impact social programs to work.

Over the years, social media has evolved and adapted to changing trends and technologies at a record pace. So, as we approach another new year, it is worthwhile to take a step back and layout the social media landscape as we see it today.

Currently, we are able to break up the social media platforms into five categories: Networks, Messengers, Moments, Reviews & Live. However, the major social platforms do not stack neatly into one category. Why? Because they have offerings that fall into multiple categories in order to maximize their reach and effectiveness. Let’s take a deeper look at each of these five categories and what they offer.

Networks

With nearly 1.8 billion daily active users on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest combined, we tend to think of the “Networks” as the core of social media and the building blocks of all social media strategies. These “Networks” are platforms that users can leverage to share various types of content with friends and followers. Each day, 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook and roughly 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram. Making Facebook and Instagram the leading platforms for core marketing communications and visual storytelling. With photography as the cornerstone of hospitality marketing, these two social networks are the ideal social platform for hotels. Twitter is also important to the hospitality and serves primarily as a guest service platform, focusing on 1:1 conversations with current, past and future guests. With an estimated 500 million Tweets per day, this network is where users can reach out for real time responses, brand news, promotional information, and much more. Pinterest is an evolving platform that serves as a visual discovery network. With roughly 500 million photos upload daily, Pinner’s can leverage Pinterest when planning for future trips as a source of inspiration.

Messengers

Next up are the “Messengers,” which have seen tremendous growth in the last few years. The two leading Messengers, Facebook’s Messenger and Whatsapp, have an estimated 2.4 billion active users. Messengers are an extremely popular means of communication, in some instances even more than texting. But, beyond individual communications, Messengers have also proven to be an essential component to a hotel’s success for a very important reason – they transcend geographical borders and device restrictions. Hotels and resorts around the world have heard countless stories of international travelers trying to get a sim card to work, figure out how to make a phone call using the right country code, or simply being able to find the phone number for a specific hotel. Messengers have become the answer to how individuals communicate across borders and for guests, it has become the primary means of interaction with a hotel for general questions, complaints, and even staff compliments.

Moments

We classify “Moments” as content formats that are marked by their short-lived nature with defined times that posted content is available. Stories allow users to share moments of their day in a short-lived, slideshow format instead of living on the user’s profile. Moments are a posting format that was first popularized by Snapchat, but has expanded in popularity with the adaption of this content format by Instagram and Facebook. Snapchat used to stand alone in this category, but Facebook made it a priority to slow Snapchat’s growth and ensure the moment’s format could be utilized on their major platforms. Today, Instagram stories are the leader in all metrics over Snapchat with 250 million daily active users in comparison to Snapchat’s 185 million daily active users. Hospitality has recently started to leverage stories in their social media by showcasing and teasing special events in real-time.

Reviews

“Reviews” came into sharp focus with TripAdvisor’s hospitality popularity index. Over time, we have seen different versions of public reviews emerge from many different platforms, including the efforts of large hotel brands to own reviews and provide some form of stay verification. Today, TripAdvisor still is a large player in the space with roughly 300 million active users. However, their shift to a somewhat OTA model where the popularity index is less valuable than matching site visitors with the right hotel as quickly as possible has allowed both Facebook and Google to push further into the space. Facebook Reviews have been gaining steam over the last 12 months. With an estimated 86 million monthly active users, Facebook Reviews are one of the fastest rising review types that hotels have to respond to. Finally, Google Reviews have also seen a large uptick in volume. Due to Google simplifying the review process and baking them into their core products such as Maps and Search, Google Reviews has proven to be a popular review site with roughly 158 million monthly active users in the United States.

Live

The last category, “Live,” is one that has received a lot of recent hype. It exists primarily around the ability to quickly and easily broadcast live to anyone who wants to tune in. Live broadcasting is also one of the areas of the landscape where hotels ask the most questions. Live now exists on most platforms and was actually pioneered by two companies, Periscope (acquired by Twitter) and Meerkat (shut down). However, it was Facebook’s version of live broadcasting, with an estimated 32 billion video views per day, that really made it mainstream. The important thing to realize is that most stories that hotels want to tell are actually not good for a “live” format and would benefit from more pre- and post-production to ensure sound & video quality are reflective of the hotel brand. However, this format is still new, evolving and remains ripe for hotels to experiment with.

If it feels like the landscape has gotten more complex, it is because it has. Social Media as an industry has matured with typical users counts above 1 billion on the major networks outlined above. As social media continues to evolve, we can guess that new categories such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, Conversational Commerce, and even new types of original content creation are visible on the horizon. So, while It is not certain to predict exactly what the future holds, one thing for certain is that social media is an industry that continues to keep us on our toes.